Mermon's throat gave way under her dagger with a sound like wet roots snapping. The silver key in Watabei's other hand burned hotter as the goblin-beast collapsed, his elongated limbs folding inward like a dying spider's. His satchel spilled its contents—scrolls, vials, and finally, the original map, its edges curling as if recoiling from the blood pooling beneath them.
Watabei snatched it up, the parchment writhing against her fingers. The ink pulsed, tendrils of black reconnecting where time had frayed them, reforming the true path to the Rootwalkers' last haven. Then the tunnel wall exploded.
Wood splinters and fungal spores filled the air as something massive crashed through the hut's ribs. Watabei had half a heartbeat to register the log—thick as a man's thigh, studded with rusted nails—before it took her in the ribs with a crack that reverberated through her bones. The map fluttered from her grasp as she hit the tunnel wall, her vision fracturing into jagged shards of bioluminescent light and encroaching blackness.
Consciousness returned in stuttering flashes: the scrape of rough hands dragging her by the ankles; torchlight glinting off a Golden Company insignia; Layla's voice echoing from somewhere far above "like she'd just vanish?" the map, trampled under a bootheel as armored figures laughed. Then nothing.
Goburo's fist clenched around empty air where the hut's back wall should've been. The oak ribs had sealed shut, leaving only smooth grain where Watabei had vanished. "No," he growled, driving his shoulder against the wood. It didn't budge. Didn't *breathe*. The hut had gone still as a corpse.
Layla crouched beside Mermon's body, her silver braid slipping over one shoulder as she examined the goblin-beast's elongated claws. "She killed him," she murmured, more to herself than Goburo. "Took the map. Then—" Her fingers brushed the log-sized hole in the tunnel wall. Splinters came away sticky with sap-dark blood.
Goburo didn't answer. His gaze locked onto the trampled parchment near Mermon's twisted feet—the edges still twitching like a dying insect's legs. He reached for it, but Layla caught his wrist.
"Don't," she said, too softly. "That's not—"
The map *convulsed*, its inked roots surging toward Goburo's outstretched fingers. Layla yanked him back just as the parchment *split*, birthing a dozen thorned tendrils that lashed at empty air before withering into dust.
"Hungry," Layla muttered, wiping her hands on her thighs. "Like the hut."
Goburo barely heard her. His boots crunched over broken fungal caps as he staggered toward the gaping hole in the wall. The scent hit him first—torch smoke and sweat-steel, the particular reek of Golden Company mercenaries. Then the blood: human-red smeared across splintered wood, darker droplets leading east toward the slums.
His pulse hammered in his throat. Watabei's dagger lay discarded near Mermon's corpse, its blade black with sap-blood. The silver key was gone.
Layla's ears twitched toward the distant clamor of the slums. "They'll gut her slow," she said, too casually. "For killing their pet goblin." When Goburo didn't answer, she sighed. "Or maybe fast. Depends if they—"
"Enough." The word scraped out raw. Goburo bent, snatching Watabei's dagger with more force than necessary. The hilt still held the warmth of her grip.
Something rustled behind them.
The healer puppet emerged from the hut's shadow, her porcelain face catching moonlight in jagged shards. Her joints creaked as she tilted her head—too far, like a broken doll. Layla's hand flew to her bow.
"A friend," Goburo growled, stepping between them. The puppet didn't react, her painted eyes fixed on the blood trail leading east.
Layla exhaled through her nose. "It stinks of grave dirt."
"*She* saved your—" Goburo cut himself off as the puppet lurched forward, her movements suddenly fluid. She paused at the trampled map fragments, bending at the waist until her face nearly touched the ground. A wet, clicking sound emanated from her throat.
Goburo's fingers tightened around Watabei's dagger. He'd seen the puppet work before—watched her press porcelain hands against wounds that should've been fatal. But this? This was something older. Something hungrier.
The puppet's head snapped up. A single word, garbled by a mouth never meant to form words: "Roooots."
Then she was moving, her stiff-limbed gait carrying her toward the tunnel breach with unnatural speed. Goburo followed before his brain caught up, Layla's muttered curses at his heels. Outside, dawn painted the slums in sickly gold, illuminating the scuff marks where heavy boots had dragged something—*someone*—through the mud.
The puppet stopped at a crossroads, her head tilting like a hound catching scent. Left, toward the butcher's alley where flies swarmed fresh offal. Right, where the Golden Company's sigil had been hastily scratched into a wall still damp with blood.
Layla snorted. "Subtle."
Goburo ignored her. The puppet was trembling now, her porcelain fingers twitching toward the right-hand path. He knew that tremor—had seen it when she'd pressed her palms against Nettle's fevered brow last week. The same frantic energy, like a creature straining against invisible chains.
"They took her alive," he realized aloud. The puppet's head swiveled toward him, her painted eyes suddenly *aware* in a way that prickled the hairs on his neck.
Layla kicked a broken vial. "For now." She nodded toward the blood trail—too much for a clean capture. "That archer's got a grudge."
The puppet lurched forward before Goburo could respond, her stiff legs carrying her down the right-hand alley with eerie precision. They followed her creaking joints past gutted fish stalls and boarded-up hovels, the stench of the slaughterhouses thickening with each step. Then the puppet froze.
Ahead, beneath a tattered awning, three Golden Company thugs lounged around a makeshift cage. Watabei wasn't inside. But the young goblin girl curled in the iron bars was unmistakable—Nettle's fingers gripped the bars, her knuckles white with strain. One guard yawned, picking at his teeth with a knife still wet with someone else's blood.
Goburo's grip tightened on Watabei's dagger. Layla's hand closed around his wrist. "Not yet," she breathed against his ear. "Cage is warded. See the sigils?"